Fast & Furious 8: The Fate of the Furious (Film Review)

Image by Rayukk, Wikipedia Commons

In the eighth instalment of the Fast and Furious films, comes more drama, bigger explosions and faster cars.

The films tend to follow the same road, with evil villains, family conflicts and Dom coming to the rescue at the last second. Of course, ‘The Fate of the Furious’ still has all that, it’s what makes the film. But this time a twist, that I never saw coming, brought about one of the best sequences this series has produced.

Whilst honeymooning with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Dom (Vin Diesel) is caught up by new villain, Cipher, who is played by Charlize Theron. She shows an image on her phone to Dom, we see his face descend into shock. The elite street racer is now putty in her hands, and with that he turns his back on his family. Toretto is stealing a nuclear football and launch codes, that could cause chaos and destruction. Whatever Cipher has on Dom, its big. This brings about new conflicts, with Letty holding on to a small hope that Dom will come back to her, Hobbs threatens to take out her husband, firmly believing he has gone rogue.

As old friends become enemies, old villains become allies.

F. Gary Grey, director of ‘Straight outta Compton‘ and ‘Set it off‘, takes on the successful franchise and makes it his own. Starting off the film in second gear; comfortable and chilled, it quickly gets kicked up a notch and accelerates into fifth gear, with explosions, cars falling out the sky and a massive nuke firing submarine. It switches between slow and fast past scenes throughout the film, causing a little whip lash for the audience.

Jason Statham completely makes this film, portraying the ever so edgy, insanely skilled, lone wolf, that is Deckard Shaw. His back and forth banter with Hobbs (Dwayne ‘Rock’ Johnson) adds to the surprising comedic turn of the 8th instalment. It wasn’t the only thing that kept audiences laughing, Roman’s (Tyrese Gibson) quick wit responses and big ego, are even quicker and wittier than ever.

This time his jokes revolve around new comer, Little Nobody, played by Scott Eastwood, who is desperately trying to be the, no nonsense government official. Doesn’t exactly work out that way, as Hobbs pins him to the wall, one hand on his neck and the other on his…well… lets just call them a mans crown jewels. I guess that’s what you get for threatening a man’s daughter.

The new team; Hobbs, Letty, Tej (Ludacris), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), Roman and Deckard Shaw work alongside Frank Petty (Kurt Russell) and Erick Reisner (Little Nobody) to prevent Dom helping Cipher carry out her plans of destruction. One scene in particular, shows them corner Dominic, five cars against one. They shoot hooks from their cars, that sink into Dom’s motor, successfully restraining and stopping him bringing the nuclear codes back to Cipher. But of course this doesn’t last long, as their ex leader hits off his car door releasing one of their grips on him, reverses back into Romans car, and then reverses again causing two of the other cars to flip and smash into one another. There is no out smarting this racer.

As true Fast & Furious fans, we welcome the unnecessarily, overly dramatic events that have occurred since the fifth film, you could call it a guilty pleasure even. Yes, this one is just as excessive and ridiculous as ever, but in all honesty the heart of the narrative, the reason for Dominic’s’ departure, is brilliant. As sceptical as I was entering this film, I was happy that they made another one, it was worth it. Opening doors for new and old characters to emerge. Like Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) from the sixth film, as well as the introduction of the Shaw brothers mother, played by Helen Mirren. This American film really shows its love for the British accent, through the Shaw family.

Before you know it, films nine and ten will be released into cinemas, so you best go see this one quickly.

Written by: Carmella Haswell

Aspiring Journalist, working my way to be a hard news journalist and film critic.